Social Media in High School Athletics: Recommendations for Individual and Organizational Branding in a Digital Age (Under the Direction of Dr
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SOCIAL MEDIA IN HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETICS: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL BRANDING IN A DIGITAL AGE Matthew J. Largen A thesis submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media Chapel Hill 2020 Submitted to: Dr. Lois Boynton, Committee Chair Dr. Brad Bates Livis Freeman i © 2020 Matthew J. Largen ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Matthew Largen: Social Media in High School Athletics: Recommendations for Individual and Organizational Branding in a Digital Age (Under the direction of Dr. Lois Boynton) High school athletics have soared to new heights in recent years. With millions of dollars invested into the media coverage and promotion of amateur athletes and high schools, it is important to be mindful of an individual’s and organization’s brand image in the Digital Age. The purpose of this project is to analyze communication and branding strategies from professional and collegiate athletics, and tailor those findings into a sustainable brand strategy for high school athletics. Ten in-depth interviews were conducted with collegiate and professional athletic communicators, collegiate student-athletes, and other members of the sporting community. Findings suggested that an organization’s brand image will continue to be a valuable recruiting tool for student-athletes, but an individual’s brand, prior to collegiate athletics, will rarely affect his or her ability to be recruited. In all, brand strategies should appeal to an individual’s or organization’s target audience(s). 1 Table of Contents CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION & BACKGROUND 3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 8 Personal Branding 8 Personal Branding and Social Media 10 Personal Branding in Sports 12 Organizational Branding 15 Social Media in Organizational Branding 17 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH QUESTIONS & METHODS 19 In-Depth Interviews 20 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS 22 Social Media Within Sports 22 Branding in Athletics 32 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION 39 CHAPTER 7: BRANDING STRATEGY IN AMATEUR ATHLETICS 46 Introduction 46 Social Media Education 46 Social Media Plans 52 Social Media Plan for Sports Organizations 52 Student-Athlete Social Media Plan 56 CHAPTER 8: CONCLUSION 62 APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW MATERIALS 65 1.1 Interview Protocol: 65 References 69 2 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION & BACKGROUND In the summer of 2018, freshman Zion Williamson arrived at Duke University's campus for the first time. However, he did not only bring himself to the prestigious basketball powerhouse located in Durham, North Carolina, for 1 million Instagram followers made the journey with him (Smith, 2019). Prior to being a member of the Duke Blue Devils, the 6' 7'' forward garnered a large social following as a member of the Spartanburg Day School's varsity basketball team (GoDuke.com, 2019). In high school, Williamson stunned basketball viewers with his superhuman agility and dazzling dunks on the court. Following his commitment to Duke and its basketball program, the team’s Instagram account saw an increased growth of 285,000 followers between July 2018-February 2019 (Smith, 2019). As a high schooler Williamson’s highlights generated millions upon millions of views between the social platforms of YouTube and Instagram. As of 2019, “Zion Williamson Day In The Life By Park Stories! Up Close & Personal w/ The #1 Player In High School,” produced by Ballislife.com, a media outlet dedicated to highlighting young basketball players throughout the country, has reached over 6.5 million views (Ballislife, 2019). Other colleges and universities are seeing a similar phenomenon occur with their newest players recruited from high school. For example, University of North Carolina freshman Cole Anthony has 557,000 Instagram followers (Anthony, n.d.), while the basketball program has 366,000 followers (Carolina Basketball, n.d.) and the University has 107,000 followers (UNC- Chapel Hill, n.d.). Like Williamson, Anthony’s large social following was generated in the high school ranks. As a high schooler, Anthony was featured in SLAM Magazine’s video, “Cole 3 Anthony Came to Oak Hill for GREATNESS | SLAM Day in the Life,” which has accumulated 275,000 views on YouTube since March 2019 (SLAM, 2019). Social channels such as Overtime, Ballislife, SLAM Magazine and others are able to bypass the troubles of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) compliance and media rights possessed by schools, athletic conferences, media outlets and others. For example, collegiate schools that participated in the Big Ten Conference’s 2017-18 athletic schedule received $54 million from their television partnerships (Berkowitz, 2019). However, the schools forfeit their rights to own and broadcast games and events under their conference and television agreements. With large sums of money being distributed at the collegiate level, one may question how much money is being made by the social channels who specialize in high school sports coverage. In January 2018, world-renowned basketball player and social icon LeBron James and hip-hop artist Drake were among a group that invested $4.7 million into a millennial-targeted sports platform Mars Reel (Mars Reel Enters Strategic Partnership, 2018). Additionally, Overtime, another social channel dedicated to producing content based around high school student-athletes, is funded by the likes of venture capital firms like Spark Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Greycroft Ventures, and Sapphire Ventures as well as basketball industry leaders like Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony (Overtime, 2019). In February 2019, Overtime's CEO Dan Porter reported that the social channel is producing videos at a rate of $500 per minute. Derived mostly from advertising and commerce, the company reported seven-figures in revenue for 2018 (Patel, 2019). Defined as the “highlight-driven generation” by two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Stephen Curry, this young and sports-consuming audience falls under Generation Z (Herbert, 4 2016). Presently, Generation Z extends from 1997 to 2019, thus this audience’s ages range from 23-1 years old (Dimock, 2019). According to the early literature surrounding the Z’ers, their consumption of social media is a behavior that many organizations will need to monitor in the years to come. “This generation is a vigorous contributor, high consumer of online content, creative and mash-up experts; they have strong gravitational bond for online communication that they prefer to participate and remain connected via technology available at finger tips” (PrakashYadav & Rai, 2017, p.111). At the 2019 Web Summit in Portugal, the cofounder and President of Overtime, Zachary Weiner, emphasized the importance of targeting of the Z’ers for the success of their organization. “The next generation consumer — for us that means the Gen-Z consumer — is not consuming sports in the same way,” Weiner said. “That means we have to put it in different places, we have to have different creators and ultimately the voice has to be very different. For us, the most important thing is that Overtime sounds like the people that we are presenting this content to. When I talk to kids about what they like about Overtime, the No. 1 piece of advice I get is that it sounds like their friends” (Weiner, 2019). An evolving problem, the overwhelming majority of high schools and student-athletes are not adequately prepared to represent and project their brand identity. A recent rule change in collegiate athletics will allow amateur athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness. Under the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) current eligibility rules, student- athletes “may promote or endorse a commercial product or service, provided they do not receive any compensation for doing so” (Promoting or Endorsing, 2019). Be that as it may, following their enrollment in an NCAA school, the athlete is no longer eligible to promote or endorse a commercial product or service for promotional purposes. However, in October 2019, the NCAA 5 voted to grant collegiate student-athletes the opportunity to profit from their identity, however, the rule will not be in effect until 2023, at its earliest iteration (Almasy, Sterling & Barajas, 2019). The future of amateur athletics will experience an unprecedented change, and consequently, student-athletes at both the high school and collegiate levels, will be exposed to a whole new world of marketing, sponsorship, and endorsement opportunities. In all, the growing social phenomenon surrounding high school athletics and competing student-athletes calls for a field-wide communication plan that promotes personal growth of the student-athletes and economic growth of the high school athletic programs. Personal growth will be measured by an increased social following, while economic growth will be measured by revenue generated from personal and organizational branding efforts. For the purpose of this study, the measurement of revenue gained, will mirror that of the video sharing platform YouTube. Advertisements, corporate sponsorships, merchandise sales, and fan donations are the four ways to earn revenue on the service. From the personal brand perspective, YouTube video producers earn between $3 and $10 per 1,000 social media engagements (O’Connell, 2018). Thus, as a video producer grows its audience, more money will be generated by the viewers engagements. Likewise, student-athletes in the near future, can expect to earn more or less revenue than their